Public Knowledge Files Court Motion Backing FCC Net Neutrality Rules

Public Knowledge has asked a court not to throw out the FCC's controversial network neutrality order, which expanded and codified its network neutrality principles.

"The rules are worth defending, and the FCC's authority to make rules is worth defending," said PK Legal Director Harold Feld, in a statement. "We believe the public will be better served by having rules in place and by having a Commission complaint process in place."

PK filed a motion to intervene in support of the FCC in Verizon's court challenge to the rules, which were adopted last December in a straight party line vote, but don't go into effect until next month.

In the motion, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, PK said its members "would be adversely affected by a reversal of the Order because their activities or businesses depend upon access to an open Internet."

Verizon sued the FCC over the rules, saying that while it was committed to an open Internet, the company in a statement also said that should not come via the FCC's "potentially sweeping and unneeded regulations."

Free Press last week also challenged the rules, but for a very different reason. It said they were insufficiently regulatory because they provided a carve-out for wireless broadband -- though the FCC did say it would monitor that space.